Design Indaba is delighted to present the South African debut of William Kentridge’s masterpiece. This is just one of several projects that Design Indaba is currently supporting as we increasingly shift our focus from just providing a platform to being an enabling cultural producer.

CEO of Design Indaba, Ravi Naidoo

Refuse the Hour is an immersive chamber opera that makes its South African debut as part of the 2015 Design Indaba Festival, on the 26th, 27th and 28th of February at the Cape Town City Hall.

Described as “an aesthetic and philosophical stage dream”, this engrossing performance allows the viewer to experience Kentridge’s art, thinking and process in a singular, evocative way.

Kentridge interweaves an astonishing range of visual and sound languages into an engrossing 80-minute performance with a discourse from the artist himself at its centre. The chamber opera is a multi-layered experience that includes dance, performed and choreographed by Dada Masilo, an original score by Philip Miller, video by Catherine Meyburgh, mechanical sculptures, vocal performance and narration.

The artist delivers a narrative that begins with the ancient Greek myth of Perseus and ends with Einstein amidst a Dadaist pandemonium of sounds and images. He is joined on stage by an international cast of twelve including dancers, musicians, performers and vocalists in this evocative and unforgettable theatre experience.

The Mantle

On October 27, Paper Music Suite, a witty, poignant, a gently subversive song-and-film cycle by composer Philip Miller and visual artist William Kentridge, made its U.S. debut at Carnegie Hall’s “UBUNTU: Music and Arts of South Africa” festival.

The Cape Times has featured an article on Philip’s latest performance of Paper Music with long time collaborator William Kentridge at Carnegie Hall, and the personal achievement this performance involves:

It’s also a celebration of many years of collaboration with Kentridge. The pair have been working together since the mid-nineties.

From October 10 until November 4 William Kentridge and Philip Miller’s latest collaboration, Paper Music, a selection of films by Kentridge with music by Miller, will be exhibited at Carnegie Hall in New York. The event was recently featured on The Times 100, the New York Times’ top 100 cultural events happening this seasons and is one not to be missed!

The exhibition will be part of the UBUNTU: Music and Arts of South Africa festival:

This capacious festival, organized by Carnegie Hall, sprawls over jazz, classical and indigenous music, including maskandi (known as the “Zulu blues“) and folk music from the country’s Cape region. The concerts include the New York recital debuts of the South African sopranos Pretty Yende and Elza van den Heever as well as a musical and theatrical evening conceived by the violinist Daniel Hope and a program of films by the artist William Kentridge, set to music by Philip Miller.

Kentridge’s Refusal of Time, a collaboration with Philip Miller, will be exhibited at the City Gallery Wellington in New Zealand from 5 September until 16 November 2014.

Never before seen in New Zealand, City Gallery is excited to be hosting William Kentridge’s work The Refusal of Time. Combining the magic of theatre, film, sculpture, drawing, music and dance, the thirty-minute five-channel video installation addresses the elusive nature of time, and our political and personal efforts to control or deny it. The Refusal of Time is the South African artist’s most moving and spectacular work to date.

A taste of William Kentridge’s ‘The Refusal of Time’. A collaboration with Philip Miller, Catherine Meyburgh and Peter Galison.
Five-channel video, with sound, 30 min; megaphones and breathing machine (“Elephant”).

Philip Will be teaming up with regular collaborator and friend William Kentridge as well as the Florence Art Music Ensemble (Flame) for a performance of PAPER MUSIC, a video concert, in Italy on the 11th of September. Flame consists of some of Florence’s finest musicians and the ensemble regularly performs alongside artists at the National Museum of the Bargello, their home venue, where the Miller, Kentridge collaboration will be taking place.

The National Museum of the Bargello is an impressive building built for the Captain of the People in the middle of the thirteenth century.

the venueThe National Museum of the BARGELLO

Breathe Dissolve Return

Breathe Dissolve Return, a Kentridge installation of three video projectors with music by Phillip Miller, will also be on display at the National Museum of the Bargello from the 13th until the 21st of September. More info here.

Here is a brief video which documents one of the processes involved in the creation of Kentridge’s ‘paper’ pieces:

Miners Shot Down, the hard-hitting documentary based on the recent South African Marikana strike where 34 miners were killed by the police, with soundtrack by Philip Miller, is screening at the 35th Durban International Film Festival. The documentary, described as “undoubtedly one of the most important and damning documentaries to emerge in post-apartheid South Africa”, will be shown on the 19th of July at 4pm at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, and on the 22nd of July at 6pm at Ekhaya.

If you’re in Durban, don’t miss out on this amazing film and the other incredible offers at the festival. More details here.

A quick synopsis on this must see film directed by Rehad Desai:

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. Methodically and soberly, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, chronicling the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company, Lonmin, the ANC government, and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers.

Philip Miller has won the 2014 Wawela award for Best Soundtrack in a Feature Film for his work on the film Mary & Martha, at the inaugural Wawela Musical Awards. The Wawelas seek to celebrate outstanding talent and work done by SAMRO (Southern African Music Rights Organisation) members on the local and international scene.

The clip below is an emotional scene from Mary & Martha which showcases a small sample of the award-winning soundtrack.